Day 7: One side of an ongoing conversation with Hafiz

Day 7 of my 30 days of poetry!  (And this one took me less than 30 minutes to write...huzzah!)

I am a little obsessed with Hafiz.  I know, that's weird, and nobody really says that, but seriously.  He's super cool, right?  He's this old Persian dude with a sense of humor, really.  

At any rate, this is one of his poems (from I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy, translated by Daniel Ladinsky):

"We should talk about this problem

There is a Beautiful Creature

living in a hole you have dug. 

So at night

I set fruit and grains

and little pots of wine and milk

beside your soft earthen mounds,

And I often sing.

But still, my dear,

you do not come out.

I have fallen in love with Someone

who lives inside you.

We should talk about this problem --

otherwise,

I will never leave you alone."

So I responded.  I mean, how could I not?  Hafiz wanted to have a conversation...so here we go:

One side of an ongoing conversation with Hafiz

Okay Hafiz, I say,

let us talk about this problem:

You act like it is all so easy.

Like I only need to look up,

to laugh.

to breathe,

to know I am beloved,

you chide me

for questioning and doubting the greatness of your Friend,

your Spirit,

Love, and life

you old Persian,

your poetry reads like fact,

goes down like prescription,

aches in my veins like drug, like addiction, you

patch up all the loveless places in my soul.

Hafiz, I say:

How it is that I feel this love and still question my worthy?

Hafiz, I say:

you leave me fruit and grains,

but perhaps chocolate is a better lure,

you should sing

better songs, or sometimes

lie down and peer under furniture

coax my timid Creature out gently

with no great promises of dancing

she needs quiet gentleness

a human love

for great love scares her.

Hafiz,

I have fallen in love with your promise of Love

and hopeful joy--

show me how to live this.

Do not just keep pestering me

to open to love:

I am only the bug that knocks against the screen

trying to reach the light.

I pause for breath and hear

Hafiz.

I can't be sure,

but I think he's laughing.